The Bad/Good Idea of Removing Assad

Who could not despise the tottering Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria?

The Syrian strongman has killed some 10,000 protestors over the last year; thousands of Syrians are now refugees.

The autocracy arms and aids the terrorist organization Hezbollah. It targets democratic Israel with thousands of missiles, and still does its best to ruin neighboring Lebanon.

Theocratic and terrorist-sponsoring Iran has few allies -- but Syria remains its staunchest. Almost no country over the last half-century has proved more hostile to the United States than has Syria.

With sanctions not working, and with the Chinese, Iranians and Russians not eager to see Assad go, there is lots of talk that the United States and its allies must intervene to help the outmanned and outgunned Syrian opposition -- either with arms supplies, training for insurgent groups, or air cover.

At first glance, such a humanitarian intervention seems a good idea. A well-armed insurgency might fight its way to Damascus. Or we could bomb Assad out of power like we did Slobodan Milosevic from Serbia, or Muammar Gadhafi from Libya -- and without the use of ground troops or loss of American life.

Would not the spread of the Arab Spring to Damascus be wonderful -- especially given that it would weaken Iran and Shiite terrorist groups that have long killed Americans? Would not fewer die from collateral damage than from Assad's thugs?

But intervention, even if by air or through stealthy military assistance, requires some sort of strategy, and right now the United States does not seem to have any coherent one. We expected that post-Gadhafi Libya, and an Egypt without Hosni Mubarak, would be far better. They might be some day. But right now, emerging Islamic republics are hardly democratic. Some seem every bit as anti-American as were the dictatorships they replaced -- and could be even more intolerant of women, tribal minorities and Christians.

The point is not that we should only support idealists who promise an Arab version of Santa Monica, but that we do not oust one monster whom we are not responsible for only to empower one just as bad whom we would be responsible for.

Our three last interventions in the Middle East offer all sorts of different lessons, but one common theme predominates -- those whom we wished to help didn't seem to appreciate it. In Afghanistan, after a decade-long investment of blood and treasure, America is scheduled to withdraw in two years without any guarantee that Afghanistan won't be ruled by the Taliban, as it was in 2001. Our biggest problem seems to be our allied Afghan friends, who keep rioting and blowing up their American partners.

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